BBAW - What Blogging Means to Me

I love this week so much. I've been really enjoying reading other people's interviews and finding new blogs through everybody's recommendations. Today the topic is what blogging means to me. 

When I first started blogging over a year and a half ago, I wasn't really aware that there was a book blogging community as such. Yes, there were other people who also blogged about books but I didn't know that everybody interacted to the extent that they do. For me starting my blog was pretty much just a way to catalogue my thoughts about what I'd read and to have an outlet to start writing again after finishing University and relocating to a different part of the country where I felt pretty lonely. It didn't take long to realise how great other bloggers are though, and today I'd have to say that it's the community as much as my blog itself which makes blogging amazing for me. At the moment I'm not having much luck with the actual review writing, I think mostly down to the huge upheaval which is preparing to have my first baby in just under four weeks, but I love that I can keep my blog going with things like Top Ten Tuesday, The Classics Club monthly meme and events such as BBAW and Banned Books Week. 

My blog is one of my favourite things for a few reasons. Firstly because it proves to me, a chronic non-finisher, that I can actually keep up with something, and then because I'm really proud of the list of reviews that I've built up over the past 18 months. Also I am constantly evolving it in terms of what I write about. When I first started I had a very structured way of writing about what I read, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to review every single thing I read. Now, not so much. I write about the things I feel inspired to write about (and by write about, I quite often mean 'start a review and then leave it sitting in my drafts folder for months'), and lately I've been thinking that I should try to review books less and more just talk about my reaction to them, which is usually quite emotion based and as such doesn't always fit into the traditional review format. I think my writing is better when I ramble, and I love that my blog gives me a place where I can do that if I want. Likewise, if I want to talk about the crafts I've been doing lately or just rant about something, I can do that too. It's brilliant. 

Through book blogging I've 'met' some amazing people who have been ridiculously supportive of me through crisis situations, despite having no idea (and never asking) of the specifics of the situation. I've also fallen in love with so many blogs, and my wishlist grows pretty much daily as a result of all the awesome reviews and bookish lists I read on your blogs. Even if I'm having a blogging slump myself, seeing new content on certain people's blogs always brightens up my day and that is such a great thing to be part of. 

I know my life is going to change a lot in the next few weeks, but I'm really hoping that I'll be able to keep up with the blog at least from time to time. If I disappear for a while though don't worry, I will be back!!